


Exterreo

by Scalliwag



Series: Family [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, learning to be a family again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 13:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18993577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scalliwag/pseuds/Scalliwag
Summary: Allison had always been a light sleeper, even more so when she got older. When her siblings have trouble sleeping, she's the first to hear.(This fic is part of a series of drabbles about the Hargreeves family re-connecting, but they are all stand-alone stories. You do not need to read all of them together.)





	Exterreo

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first of (probably) many drabbles about the Hargreeves family. I'd like to do at least one focusing on each character, but who knows. This drabble wasn't planned. It was actually just a random tangent I went off on when working on two of my Dave/Klaus fics (Somniloquy and Somnium), but I'm assuming I'll go off on more of these tangents as I write more in this fandom. 
> 
> This drabble focuses on Allison and part of her journey to re-connect with her siblings.

They say that being a parent turns people into light sleepers. The lightest sound could be your child in trouble and a parent needs to be able to respond to that. Alison has no idea if that’s true or not. She always has been a light sleeper, so nothing much changes in that regard when she becomes a mom. Except now when she hears someone wake from a nightmare, she goes to them. As a child, Alison had always stayed firmly in bed. 

Luther, Diego, and Five never did have trouble sleeping. The other three were another story altogether. 

Klaus was plagued by nightmares constantly. He would see the dead in his dreams and sometimes they would still be there when he woke. To be honest, Klaus’s power always frightened Alison a bit. She didn’t like the idea of the dead walking the earth and if the look on Klaus’s face when he saw them was any indication, the dead didn’t seem to be very friendly. So when she heard Klaus’s voice, pleading with someone, anyone, to help him, to let him out, Alison stayed in bed. 

Ben’s problem was much louder than Klaus’s. When he woke from a nightmare, his scream would echo through the hallway. It was enough to spur Alison to check the first time, but Ben was already headed to Klaus’s room by the time she reached her door, so Alison went back to her bed. It was the same every time it happened. Ben’s scream would wake her. She’d hear his footsteps, followed not long after by their father’s. Then the lecture. “You must learn to overcome your fears.” Ben would return to his room until their father retreated. Then he would march straight back to Klaus’s room for the night. No one told on him. 

Vanya was always so quiet during the day, and at night she was quiet as well. But her room was right next to Alison’s. When Vanya cried in her sleep, tiny and soft, Alison was pretty sure she was the only one who heard it. She slipped into Vanya’s room once when she heard the sound, shaking Vanya awake. However, when she asked what was wrong, Vanya couldn’t remember. She seemed perfectly fine once she woke, so Alison chalked it up to nothing more than a strange quirk to her otherwise perfectly ordinary sister. She didn’t bother to wake Vanya again. 

Then Alison became a mom. 

The slightest scare or sadness in Claire had Alison by her side in mere seconds, soothing her back to sleep, telling her stories, and yes, on the rare occasion, rumoring her back to sleep. She never thought twice about going to her daughter at night. She was a mom. That’s what mom’s do. 

Then she wasn’t a mom anymore. The apocalypse happened and Five transported them all back to a time before any of that had happened. Claire hadn’t been born yet. Alison didn’t have a child. She wasn’t a mom. But she had been. So now when she wakes to the sound of her siblings crying, screaming, dreaming, haunted, she goes to them. 

She sits with Klaus when he wakes from a dream, shaking and craving the release of drugs. She whispers soothing things and rubs circles on his back until he falls back asleep. 

She makes Diego a cup of herbal tea, just like their mom used to when she finds him pacing in the kitchen at night, on edge. He never wants to talk about the dreams, but Alison suspects most of them have something to do with Detective Patch. 

She plays records for Luther when he wakes up short of breath and in a cold sweat, a scream on his tongue. 

She walks with Five when he gets up in the middle of the night to look in each of their siblings’ rooms, cracking open each door to check that they’re there, then makes him a strong cup of coffee. She knows he won’t be going back to bed anyway. 

She wakes Vanya up when she hears her crying in her sleep, then listens as Vanya shares all the things she can finally remember. 

And on the nights when Alison dreams of Claire being consumed by fire or crushed as their house falls down on top of her, on the nights Alison wakes clutching her own throat, the memory of choking on her own blood fresh in her mind, Vanya is there by her side, asking her if she wants to talk about it. Klaus sits by her shoulder, rubbing soothing circles on her back, Ben sitting close, not saying anything, but not leaving either. Diego and Five busy themselves in the kitchen, arguing over whether tea or hot cocoa is better for this situation. When Alison is finally ready to go back to sleep, Luther stays a bit longer than the rest, humming an off-key lullaby. 

On those nights, she realizes it’s not about being a mom. It’s about finally learning to be a family.


End file.
